He thought I was upset because he hadn’t paidenough?
“How can yousaythat?” The words piled up in my throat, threatening to spill. “I didn’t ask for your money.”
I hadn’t asked for anything. Not the clothes, not the wedding, not even that IKEA chest he’d insisted on paying for.
I was my own person, and he knew it.
So why had he decided to dothis?
He pulled back slightly and rested his hands on his knees, looking at me. “Andy, slow down, please. I can see you’re upset, but—”
“Don’t.” I held up a hand. “Don’t minimize this so you can feel okay about it.”
“I’m not. I’m trying to understand what you’re accusing me of.”
Did he think using that special ultra-calm tone was going to fix this, like I was some sort of highly-strung filly?
“You bought my painting.”
“No, I didn’t.”
I laughed. “So Sebastian’s wrong, is he?”
“Sebastian?” he said. “Babe, I haven’t—”
“Roth Holdings Limited,” I said. “That’s your company, isn’t it?” Did he think I was too stupid to realize? I’d even looked it up on Companies House to check.
“I didn’t buy your painting, babe,” he said, slowly. “I swear to you. If Roth Holdings was involved, then I don’t know anything about it.”
“Right.” I leaned back against the arm of the sofa. “You’re so rich, seventeen K on an invoice doesn’t even register.”
“Andrea—”
“We’re using full names like weapons now, are we?”
“But you just—” He stopped.
No way he didn’t know. He’d even asked me in the supermarket when I was finding out about the sale. Like asking a child what they wanted for Christmas when you’d already bought their present.
Heat surged in my cheeks.
Fuck this. I’d made a mistake. I’d got too close, startedrelying on someone for the first time since Dad… and he was already overstepping.
How could he not have known what this would mean tome?
“Andy. It’s possible something went through that I didn’t know about. It happens. I’m not always across every little—”
“Sure. Like you weren’t across the redundancies, either?”
As soon as I’d said it, I knew that was what had been hiding underneath all along. It had been gnawing at me since France, when I’d fallen breathlessly into his arms in the cottage.
So keen to turn away my gaze, to ignore what he was doing to my friends.
“A man like Liam couldn’t get to where he is today without leaving some damage behindhim.”
And that damage was my friends.
What else had he done that I didn’t knowabout?
